(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a load/charger detection circuit, a battery management system comprising the same and a driving method thereof.
(b) Description of the Related Art
A battery serves to charge electrical energy and supply the charged electrical energy to various electronic devices. Particularly, a secondary battery (cell) may recharge electrical energy to be used. The secondary battery may be implemented by stacking a plurality of cells in order to increase output. The secondary battery including a plurality of cells may perform a charging operation as well as a discharging operation. In order to efficiently manage the charging operation and the discharging operation, a battery management system (hereinafter referred to as ‘BMS’) is mounted in the secondary battery.
When a load is connected to the secondary battery, the BMS detects the connection of the load and controls an operation of supplying a charged voltage of the secondary battery to the load. Further, when a charger is connected to the secondary battery, the BMS detects the connection of the charger and controls an operation of supplying a current from the charger to the secondary battery.
In order to detect the connection of the load or the connection of the charger, the BMS includes a detection circuit. The detection circuit generally includes a comparator and a reference voltage. However, when the comparator and the reference voltage are used, power consumption is high so that the problem may be caused when taking into account the characteristics of the battery valuing the power consumption. Particularly, even when the load or the charger is not connected, the power consumption is increased due to the comparator and the reference voltage.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.